A Better Life
by Fringie Jester
Summary: Hannibal promised Clarice a better life with him; a life that will be very far away from the corruption of the FBI. Will she accept his offer? And will it really be everything that he promised her that it would be?
1. Time

A/N: This story starts at the ending of the movie Hannibal, but, I'm attempting to use some elements from the movie, couple of the alternative scenes, and the books. I have also used some direct quotes from each of them, which I have italicized.

"Bye, Clarice." These were the final words that he had planned to utter to her in this instance, as there was no doubt in his mind that they would be seeing one another again, and soon, if he had anything to do with it. All of that time that he had kept himself at a distance, watching her from afar, longing for the day that he could call her his own and there she was, only but a mere foot in front of him, pinned up against the fridge from her hair being caught in the closed door. Many other lesser men than he would have surely taken advantage of such a beautiful and elegant creature in such a defenseless state, but he could never bring the FBI agent any harm and Hannibal had promised her as much. The world was a far more interesting place with her in it, and it would certainly be rude of him if he broke that promise to her, even in such a predicament as the one that they currently found themselves in now. Instead the former surgeon had brought her back to Paul Krendler's rental lake home, removed the bullet that had penetrated her shoulder and then nursed her back to health, and even when her first instincts had been to attack him, he had been forced into a position where he had to pin her up against the fridge, but only out of self-defense.

Hannibal had always found nourishment just from the mere sight of her, and that already left him yearning to be nearer to her more often than not; more so now that he had stolen from her a highly coveted kiss. The absence of her from his lips already left the doctor hungering for her more than ever before, if such a thing could truly be possible. Deep down, Hannibal knew in his gut that Clarice would _never_ see through the bars of his plight and ache for him just as he ached for her. She saw him as her enemy, after all, but some of their stars were the same, and he hoped that, perhaps, there was even the slightest of possibilities that he could be very wrong about her.

Hannibal couldn't bear to peel himself or his eyes away from her splendorous beauty now that he was there to take it all in, and if he had to be completely honest with himself, he really didn't want to… even with the opposing threat of being reincarcerated and losing his freedom once more. Clarice had already called the cops nearly ten minutes prior and they would be bearing down upon his head at any given time now, getting closer and closer to them, with every tick of the clock. And yet, even with this knowledge in mind, he was still finding it nearly impossible to budge a single inch away from her. Taking one last deep breath of her intoxicating aroma, Hannibal _finally_ mustered enough strength to force himself to walk away from her, until suddenly, her fingers tightly coiled themselves around his wrist to prevent him from taking another step. Hannibal brung himself to a halt to look back his angelic Clarice, who was now desperately trying to maneuver herself to lean against her side to face him.

Clarice had to be in a great deal of pain with her hair still clamped tightly shut inside of the refrigerator door (or perhaps the morphine that he had given to her earlier, when he removed the bullet from her shoulder, was still dulling her senses), but there she was peering up at him with those daring blue eyes. It was almost as if he could momentarily peer into the depths of her soul and read it with great clarity, as if it were one of his books. Was that a trace of fear that he detected? Hannibal's heart, ever so still and quiet, even leaped and sped up as he peered a little more deeply into her eyes, but he kept his face an unreadable mask to her. It was odd, and yet strangely fascinating to him, that she was the only human being on this cruel planet who had ever had this sort of effect on him. Stranger yet, he both hated it and craved it.

"I'm really short on time, Clarice." his voice was calm as he spoke, but in truth, he was becoming a little more nervous by the second.

"You never answered my question from earlier, doctor." she prodded as her grip tightened around his wrist even more.

"Oh? And what question would that be, hmm?"

"I asked you about your life."

"I already told you-"

"No… why do you do all of this? With all of our talks, you have never trusted me enough to tell me why. What purpose does it serve for _you_ to kill all of these men?" She tugged at his arm to pull him a little closer to her, and he oddly enough found himself letting her. "Earlier, you told me that you came all of this way to watch me run in the woods… and then you asked me to run away with you. How can you seriously expect me to trust you enough to leave everything behind, if you can't trust me with something like that? I told you everything..." Her eyes were becoming more fierce by the second. Was it possible that Clarice would reconsider taking up his proposition? A proposal, that offered her a chance at the life she so richly deserved? A life away from the FBI and the corruption of leaders, who continually yearned to see her fail- it was a life he could afford to give her and the offer was still on the table if she wished to take it. All she needed to do now was reach out and take hold of it. But would she?

 _I think a new life lies before you. A better life. With me? Hmmm, there's a thought._ His earlier words briefly echoed throughout his mind for a moment as he dared to let his eyes quickly dart towards the ticking clock next to the wall. He was running out of time and he could almost swear that he heard the wailing sirens from the oncoming police cars in the distance.

"Another time, perhaps, but for now, I really must be going." He attempts to jerk himself free from her grasp, but her iron grip was just as unfaltering as her determination. Damn, did he ever admire her strength, which also reminded him of something else that he had once told her before. _The most stable elements, Clarice, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between iron and silver. I think that is appropriate for you._ And she was every bit as stubborn and as strong as those metals were.

"We don't reckon time in the same way, do we, doctor?" She echoes a sentiment that he had once expressed to her when she came to him for some answers about Buffalo Bill. He should have known that would eventually come back to bite him in the ass.

Hannibal's eyes suddenly lit up, as if they were on fire and drew himself threateningly closer to her, stopping when his face was only but an inch away from her own. "Don't test me, Clarice." His voice was apparently much calmer than his current outward demeanor. Clarice appeared startled by his reaction to her seemingly innocent question. However, she didn't move or flinch away from him. "You do recall what happened to the last person who tried to test me, don't you?" He paused for a moment and then added, "Now, Clarice, let me go. I need to go, _now_."

"I'm not testing you, doctor." She was steady as stone, her voice was unwavering. "I want to know. I want to understand…"

Hannibal closed his eyes for a moment or two and then calmly took a step away from her to recompose himself. Clarice was truly being completely earnest with him. Hannibal could tell, just from the sound of her voice, and she did have a point… and a very good one at that. He knew every little detail about her own path, the one that led her straight to the FBI. He knew the very thing that motivated her. Yet, she didn't know a thing about how he had come to this point in his life and how he became the monster that she carried with her each day. "If I promised you that I would tell you everything, the next time that we come face-to-face, would you let me go?"

"If you also promise me that it won't be another ten years… before I see you again." She replied.

Hannibal gave her a quick nod. _Reasonable enough._

Reluctantly, and without saying another word, Clarice freed the older man from her vice grip and he hastily started towards the back door, through which he could make his escape. He hadn't any more precious time to waste as the cops surely must be drawing closer, pulling up into the driveway by now. Or they must be mere moments away at the very least. "Oh, and one more thing, the offer is still on the table. Think about it." He called out over his shoulder and then disappears through the doorway and into the night.

A/N: This chapter was going to be a little longer, but I feel like this is a good place to end things for now, so I won't feel the need to rush through the next part.


	2. Escape

Hannibal crept silently through the trees in the blanket of darkness that currently covered the forest that surrounded him, keeping his calm in the still night air. He had already mapped the trail of his escape out earlier the previous day (just for such an occasion) when he first arrived at Paul's rental home to do a little exploring of his own. In fact, he had been counting on her to do everything that she had been trained to do, down to the very last letter, and call the cops to come and get him. Hannibal _wanted_ her to do it because, in the end, it proved to him how steadfast to her training, and her principles, that Clarice truly was. Hannibal knew that she would never disappoint him, _not in a thousand years_.

The psychologist's eidetic memory carried him effortlessly forward onto the trail, as if he had ventured out this way many times before in his lifetime. On occasion, he would also remember a low lying branch that he needed to avoid and Hannibal would lean forward to walk beneath it. Hannibal thoroughly enjoyed the many advantages that his eidetic memory gave to him, especially during times such as these. Without it, he imagined that his progress through the maze of trees wouldn't be nearly as quick as it had been.

The trip from there to the gas station, where he had left his van, was not an extremely long one and Hannibal was beginning to see brief flickers of light through the canopy of leaves just above him. The whole trip was nearly twenty minutes by foot, at the most, and he already had a head start on the cops that were currently in pursuit of him. He could practically be anywhere by now for all that they knew… That thought amused him. Hannibal had to leave the area, and rather quickly at that, because he was smart enough to know that the police would be plastering his face all over the place during the days and weeks to come, just be sure that _everyone_ would know his face… they should have known it already… but they didn't. He had even been able to walk down the streets in broad daylight the day before to purchase steak knives from a store, and no one so much as batted an eye in his direction.

After a few more moments of skulking around in the darkness, Hannibal finally came to the clearing that opened up to reveal the gas station, where Hannibal caught a glimpse of a vast array of fireworks in the distance. Red, blue, yellow, and pink. He wondered if Clarice could see them, too. If he had had the time, he might have stopped to admire them with her, but alas, he could not. He was homefree now that he had reached his van and Hannibal couldn't afford to waste anymore of his time on such trivial matters. Turning the key to start the engine, Hannibal could now simply just… _disappear…_

* * *

Clarice began to tug at her hair the very moment that Hannibal made his exit, until the door of the fridge finally relinquished its grasp on her and the delicate strands of hair began to slip out a little at a time until she was able to pull herself free. There was a part of her that was cursing the man for not freeing her from her entrapment, even after they had made some kind of truce. Did he simply not have the time? Or was it something more than that? _He doesn't trust me,_ she realized.

Clarice sprinted out through the back door after Hannibal, as quickly as she could manage in the high heels that he had placed onto her feet, but he had already disappeared out of sight before she could get there… _perhaps the boat down by the lake?_ Running around the side of her house, she made her way through a small patch of trees and down the gently sloping hill to see Paul's boat moving around in the water, but there was nobody inside of it.

* * *

 **Clarice spent the next few days answering all of the FBI's questions, giving interviews, and being relentlessly prodded for more answers on the possible whereabouts of Hannibal Lecter. She** ** _could_** **inform them that she eventually planned to meet up with Doctor Lecter again, but she didn't know when or where or even how that he would come to her. Only he would know the answers to any of those questions, and it would also be on his own terms and conditions. She knew that he would be cautiously watching her from a distance, just waiting for her to break her promise to him, and then he would never show himself to her ever again. That thought left a feeling of pain and emptiness deep inside of her stomach that she didn't completely understand.**

There were still yet many things about that entire night that she didn't understand, that she hadn't even began to process yet, and she didn't necessarily _want_ to think about it either. Clarice had studied all of Doctor Lecter's cases in great length, playing them over and over again in her own mind until the logic behind each of his attacks were able to permeate through into her own mind, and yet, it was another thing to see one of those crimes committed right in front of her very own eyes. Paul Krendler had survived in his kitchen with a towel thrown over his exposed brain until the cops were finally able to arrive on the scene, but there was nothing that could be done to save him. He had already lost too much blood and there was too much brain damage for him to survive the trip back to the hospital. Krendler would have never been the same man that he had once been anyways, if by some great miracle he been able to pull through having his skull cut open by a cannibalistic serial killer. An even more frightening thought had crossed her _own_ mind that night… _Krendler had deserved it._

Krendler had despised his fellow FBI agent ever since she had solved the Buffalo Bill case before he had been able to. He had been jealous of her, Clarice had realized at the time, but afterwards, he had continually dripped poison into her files, in a desperate attempt to destroy any credit that she might have gained from solving the case. Clarice had desperately tried to remain patient with the infuriating and sexist man, but he had kept pushing her and pushing her, until that became an incredibly difficult and trying thing for her to do… and then Doctor Lecter somehow knew that Krendler had been the _main_ source of all of her problems at the FBI. But how had he known? Had he seen Krendler in the news? Or in the papers? Doctor Lecter had already killed someone for her sake once before, right after she had visited him at the hospital for the first time. It was his own way of trying to protect her, by giving her a form of justice that she might not have received otherwise. It wasn't the way that she would have chosen to go about doing it, but she knew that that was the way that he had seen what he had done.

All in all, there was a very small part of Clarice that was strangely relieved that she would never see Krendler's taunting face, or hear the sound of his demeaning voice, ever again. Clarice couldn't believe that she could feel so indifferent towards another human being's murder… That wasn't like her, was it? Clarice knew that she was in the wrong place now, she didn't belong there, no matter how badly she wanted to be an FBI agent. A _real_ FBI agent that was allowed to do her damn job. Clarice had been stabbed in the back one too many times now and the serial killer that was in her life, whether she liked him being there or not, was the _only_ man who had been a constant variable in her life, ever since the day that she had met him. There was no surprises with him anymore, because she always knew what to expect with him. Doctor Lecter had been more honest with her than most, even on some of the things that she didn't want to hear, but at least he had said it to her face… and he always did try to help her in his own way by mentoring her… hadn't he?

Clarice knew that she _had_ to see Doctor Lecter again, she decided. Her curiosity was starting to boil up inside of her and get the better of her now that she _knew_ that there was an _actual_ reason behind his madness. She had to know _why_ he killed, because she needed to understand what had caused him to become the monster that she carried with her each day, especially now that she had experienced one of his crimes firsthand. Perhaps it would even help her discover some things about herself as well.

* * *

The entire week after the FBI was done with questioning her, went crawling by as Clarice waited for some word from Doctor Lecter, if he would actually show himself so soon after his latest kill. Clarice's home had been turned into a crime scene for the time being (since she admitted to Hannibal being in it earlier and the FBI thought he might return), so she had no other choice but to check into a small hotel on the far side of town where she could get some time to herself. There was not a lot that she could do in the meantime, other than to spend most of her free time mindlessly flipping through channels on the small television screen, and nursing the bullet wound that was still throbbing against her shoulder as if it had its own heartbeat. Even she had to admit that Doctor Lecter's handiwork on the stitching was quite good, but now she would always carry this scar, this reminder of him, everywhere she went for the rest of her life. There would really be no escaping him now, even if she _really_ wanted to. The FBI agents, and the doctors who treated her afterwards, all seemed rather surprised by the fact that Lecter had helped her, rather than to bring her any harm like he had Krendler… she didn't dare tell them that he was in love with her, although they suspected it already.

Clarice leaned back against her pillow of the hotel bed, with her remote in hand and resumed her new daily routine of flipping through the small assortment of channels until she landed on something that she didn't find so repulsive. She could scarcely think about food lately, so she always tried to avoid the Food Channel, going as far as blocking it after her first couple of days of channel surfing. Clarice only ate when she _had_ to eat, which was causing her lips to become chaft. Absentmindedly, she licked her lips in an attempt to moisten them, and her mind automatically drifted back to the feeling of Doctor Lecter's lips against her own and how they had tasted that night… her mind lingered on that thought until ringing from the phone on the nightstand startled her and brought her back into the present. For a moment, Clarice thought about ignoring the call, because she didn't want to answer anymore of the FBI's questions. She only wanted to be left alone.

After all of five rings, Clarice relented and reached over to pick the phone up and placed it over her ear.

"Hello, this is Clarice Starling."

"Good evening, Clarice. I hope that this wasn't a bad time for you, but I wanted to know if you had given any thought to my offer? I have been anticipating your reply, you know? I will be leaving here in just a few days from now."

Clarice quickly brought herself into a seated position on the side of her bed when she heard the all too familiar voice on the other end. Was she dreaming?

"Yes, Doctor Lecter. I've thought on it some, but I don't feel comfortable with giving you an answer until you've kept your promise to me."

"That's fair enough. There's an abandoned building on the far side of the river where you like to run. You know the place. You can see it from the bridge. Meet me there around seven. You can bring your gun if you'd like." There was a clicking sound and then a dial tone on the other end. He had hung up.


End file.
